Off-Page SEO: Building Links and Popularity

Off-page SEO is search engine optimization efforts from outside the website.

Optimizing from a website, or on-page SEO is often not enough to get a high ranking in search results. Especially for new websites that don't have an audience, unless the keyword competition is quite low.


Why backlinks are very important

To understand the importance of off-page SEO, I will explain a little about the relationship between search engines and links.

Search engines like Google have a bot that is tasked with crawling on the internet. Google's crawler is called Googlebot

Googlebot moves from the website to the website through the links listed on each website page. From the data collected by Googlebot, an index and ranking order are arranged.

Because Googlebot uses links as navigation, websites that have external links will have high priority. The more and the higher the quality of the link, the better the ranking of the website.

This is why links from other websites (backlinks) play an important role in SEO.


Incorrect link building strategy

Off-page SEO has a dark side in it.

There are people who want to increase their website ranking but are too lazy to create quality content and do marketing, on the contrary they only rely on link building.

Link building is a support for website content, without having good content, you should not do link building. Because besides being useless, the result can be a punishment from Google.

A good link building process is always related to marketing and content marketing. Not through spamming and bot usage or automation software.

There are several forms of backlinks that are not liked by search engines because they are often misused.

Here are some of them:

Exchange links. The way that was very popular in the mid to late 2000s, exchanging links directly did not provide any positive benefits.
Buy links & use backlink services. Buying links is likely to increase rankings quickly but usually won't last long because you will be punished by Google.
Comments on blogs & forums. The links that you get from comments on the blog do not provide great benefits, so does the forum. But both are often a land of spam.
Auto-approve link. All forms of links that are not through the moderation of the website owner. This means that the link immediately appears when you enter your website address.
Using bot software. There are several software / tools that can be used to get links automatically, but the links you get are of low quality and can actually damage the website.
Private Blog Network. This means that a group of blogs owned by 1 person only functions as a backlink field to their main website. Google actively punishes blog networks like this.
Spam. In any form, spamming techniques will not provide positive benefits for you.
Links obtained in the above ways are usually of low quality. The maximum results you can get are high ranking in the short term, then subject to penalties by Google.

Therefore it is better to avoid techniques like this.

As with on-page SEO, quality is very influential. Even off-page SEO is more sensitive to quality.


That means like this.

Even though you have a good website and content, if you do off-page violations like the above, you won't be spared punishment.

Because of the importance of link building, further guidance on getting quality links will be discussed in the next chapter.

Relationship between content and backlinks
Content = on-page, backlink = off-page. Is there a connection between content and backlinks?

Very there. Here's a quote from Bing.

If the value that has worked so hard to instill in your site is evident to them, they will help their own customers by linking back to your site. That, my friend, is the essence of link building.

I guess the meaning is like this,

If your website does have value (value) and this value is seen by others, then they will be happy to provide a link to you. This is the essence of link building.

To provide value, you must have quality content. To show this value to others, you must do content marketing.

So content marketing is the "source" of the main backlinks for you.


Social media and off-page SEO

The effect of social media on SEO is a debate that has not yet ended.

Some people say it is influential, some say only Google+ is influential, the rest say it has absolutely no effect.

So is it really important for social media marketing?

Important.

Although it has nothing to do with SEO. Social media is one of the best ways to introduce your website to many people.

As discussed earlier, besides having quality content you also have to show this content to others. Therefore social media is the right place for this.

When other people see your content, and are interested, they may return to recommending you to others with shares, likes, and so on.

This is why you must be active on social media to market your website.

The use of social media as a marketing tool is explained in the following 2 articles:

Off-page SEO ranking factor
Off-page SEO is a website popularity game. In determining the popularity of a website, Google uses various factors.

We already know that backlinks are the main factor in off-page SEO. But not just any backlink has a positive impact.

The following are ranking factors outside the website.

1. Quality of backlinks
Quality backlinks have a far stronger effect than those that are not qualified. But what determines the quality of backlinks?

Website reputation
Website activeness
Similarity of topic
Placement of backlinks on the website
Dofollow & nofollow
Language equality
Age of backlinks
Regarding placement, backlinks that have the best quality are placed in the text. The term is contextual link.

This is because Google reads what the text surrounds the link and decides in what context the link is installed. As a result, your website will get points for these keywords.

2. Anchor text in backlinks
The anchor text used in links is read by search engines as keywords. Your website gets extra points in the text that are used as anchors.

However, using the same anchor over and over again will not have a positive impact.

You need to know if in 1 page there are 2 links to your website and both have different anchors, then Google uses the first anchor.

3. Number of backlinks
The more backlinks you get, the better.

But not only that.

Quantity must be in line with quality. If you only get backlinks from websites that do not have a reputation, this is not counted as a positive factor.

4. Diversity of backlinks
There are several types of backlinks, one of which is mentioned is contextual link. Besides that there are still more such as blog comments, profiles, bio, widgets, advertorials, directories, etc.

Too much use of one type of backlink will not give optimal effect.

Logically, if we get backlinks naturally, the types of backlinks will vary. This is why search engines use diversity as a factor.

5. Social reputation
Google can understand the sentiment in each comment. This means that every time your website appears then negative comments appear from other people, will have a bad impact.

The same is true of positive sentiments that have a positive impact.

6. Social activities
Websites that are active on social websites such as social media and social networking mean popular.

The social activity of a website can be seen one of them by measuring tools in the form of the number of shares to social networks. But remember again with positive and negative sentiments.

7. User personal factors
Since Google implements personalized search, search results in the same keywords can be different for each Google account.

This is influenced by several factors such as:

Never-do users visit a website
The level of user satisfaction with a website
Country and language
Has a website been shared by a friend
You need to know that search engines have never issued an official list of factors that influence ranking, therefore the above factors are obtained empirically.